Manga Studio 5 - what are your thoughts?

jayorten 2014-09-03 21:28:52 UTC #12

Manga Studio is probably one of the best painting programs I've ever used. I daresay it's even better than photoshop! Reason being is because of how the brushes synchronize so well with the tablet, and how natural it feels. It also has the vector feature which is very handy. Definetly worth the money.

oliviasstephen 2014-09-04 00:53:40 UTC #13

@jayorten You can't hate the tilt function either!

felipechoque 2014-09-04 03:59:32 UTC #14

Thanks to Manga Studio 5, I'm drawing comics again. I abandoned them for 3 years because it was too time consuming, but MS5 makes everything really easy, like adding speech ballons, framing, halftones, etc.
I can't recommend it enough, for me it's the best.

Spitfire 2014-09-04 07:23:04 UTC #15

Oh darn you people!! You're really pushing me to spend my small pennies! Maybe I'll give it a look in the weekend!

SMYoshi 2014-09-04 21:33:11 UTC #16

It's incredibly versatile. In fact, I've abandoned Photoshop because of it. Since it's oriented more towards comics, it allows your workflow to go uninterrupted for quite awhile. If you do want to have killer effects like watercolors and so forth, well, Photoshop for that. But those are the finite details that are often overlooked when making strips.

Spitfire 2014-09-07 11:54:17 UTC #17

HNNNGGG...bought it...I blame yall!

tingchen00 2014-09-08 05:09:57 UTC #18

Hope you enjoy it.

Aeonhue 2014-09-14 21:10:10 UTC #19

Honestly the only reason I use Manga Studio 5 is for the dialogue bubbles and text, that is so easy to use.

Spitfire 2014-09-16 21:07:52 UTC #20

Okey, so now I have it...pokes it will it make comics for me? But seriously, it feels humongous, I think I have hours of tutorials ahead of me though I must say I really like the blending tools, and there's certain other functions that are simply smart, but this whole thing now requires some getting used to

tingchen00 2014-09-22 16:57:59 UTC #21

Ganbatte! And ask questions if you get lost.

Spitfire 2014-09-23 11:09:49 UTC #22

I'm testing it as much as I can with my time being limited and my mental well being being (being one more time because it sounds like boing and is funny..) somewhat on the test. BUT thank you for pushing me to get it, so far it has been fun.

@tingchen00 I might take you on that promise if I get frustrated about it ;D

Spitfire 2014-09-29 19:02:11 UTC #23

So made this with Manga Studio 5. Pin up Don't worry it's not NSFW

Also @tingchen00 is it true that one can't rotate text in Manga studio 5 without rasterising the text first?

MylCreates 2014-09-29 19:04:29 UTC #24

Unfortunately I haven't used Manga Studio. All I got is Photoshop :-/ . Though I'd like to try if the opportunity presented itself.

felipechoque 2014-09-30 04:59:32 UTC #25

yeah, it's true. That's one of the only things I didn't like about it, if not the only one. But the comfort of the text ballons and tails and everything else makes me forget that nuisance

Spitfire 2014-09-30 06:09:55 UTC #26

@felipechoque I'm used to making my balloons free hand so I win nothing! Aawwell, trapped in the world of two programs

tingchen00 2014-10-07 04:34:45 UTC #27

Ah, sorry @Spitfire! I was out of town all last week so didn't see this til now.
Hmm... you know, I don't ever rotate the canvas in-app since I just tend to rotate the tablet itself (which... works better when you have a tablet where you draw directly on the screen). MS5 recently released an update. I wonder if that will be part of the software updates in the future?

Spitfire 2014-10-07 06:59:03 UTC #28

@tingchen00 rotating the canvas is no problem, there's at least two hot keys to it, I use simply the letter R just like in Photoshop. But there's probably some faster way even to that. Which I will start learning eventually. But apparently rotating text layer isn't an option unless you rasterise the layer first. Which is slightly sucky, but I just compromise and do the texts in Photoshop.

It would be great if they would change it in MS5

paigelavoie 2014-10-15 13:32:22 UTC #29

It took me a while to figure out a lot of the tools in Manga Studios 5 (I actually think I'm still figuring them out) But the inking, coloring, and vector layers are awesome!

I do really miss the storyboard feature from MS4 though...

zod 2015-01-20 16:54:33 UTC #30

I still use EX4 even though having 5, I did not like the of the panel being called frames, changing things from one software to another just makes it another learning curve to sit down and understand.

Mind you I do like the close fill feature MS has in general and the line work is so much better than Photoshops

Viscera 2015-01-20 19:25:46 UTC #31

Personally, I was never fond of Manga Studio. I found that it gave the comic too much of a stark, digital look. The lines are too crisp. It's a matter of taste that determined my opinion, but I rather much liked the softer brush feel and freedom of Photoshop. Granted, MS has features such as screentones and perspective lines that Photoshop (the one I'm using) has not, and I need to install those features separately.

I think the best looking comics still come from traditional work either way. But that's obviously an expensive alternative that not many can afford.

I think MS is helpful in that it has all the basics and features preset for a comic, whereas Photoshop can be treated more like a canvas with more liberty on the set up. I find the free-hand techniques much more appealing. Drawing your own panels, speech bubbles and sound effects goes a very long way!

And of course, Photoshop is much more capable with colours